Megha Majumdar’s widely acclaimed debut A Burning and Samit Basu’s dystopian narrative Chosen Spirits are part of the longlist for India’s richest literary prize, the JCB Prize for Literature.
The 10-book strong longlist, announced by the jury over a video stream on Tuesday morning, also includes Annie Zaidi’s Prelude to a Riot, Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Manjul Bajaj’s In Search of Heer, Jahnavi Barua’s Undertow, Tanuj Solanki’s The Machine is Learning and Dharini Bhaskar’s These, Our Bodies Possessed by the Light.
The list includes two translations: Ashoke Mukhopadhyay’s A Ballad Of Remittent Fever (translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha) and S. Hareesh’s Moustache (translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil).
The shortlist will be announced on 25 September. The winner will receive Rs 25 lakh and each of the shortlisted writers will get Rs 1 lakh each. Translators of shortlisted books will receive Rs 50,000 each while that of the winner will be awarded Rs 10 lakh.
Last year’s prize was won by debutant Madhuri Vijay for The Far Field, set in Kashmir.
This year’s jury was chaired by academic Tejaswini Niranjana. You can watch the jury announce the longlist here:
The article has been corrected to reflect that the jury is chaired by academic Tejaswini Niranjana.